Focus
by Broken Boys
Summary: Lex's POV of the events in 'Mortal.' This story contains spoilers for the episode and portrays a possibly OOC Lex.


FOCUS

I can't stop thinking about everything that has happened in the last couple of days. I try to focus on other things. There are so many things that are supposed to be more important, but I can't get Clark out of my head.

Work, my father, and various other responsibilities have been thrust upon me seemingly without any regard to whether or not I'm up for the task. Is it possible to find something mentally invigorating, yet physically and emotionally draining? Is it possible to want something but not desire it? Well, that's how I feel about running LuthorCorp at the present. I've always wanted to possess what my father never thought I could take but now that I have it, I'm still not pleased. I'm still not happy. And I never will be because I think that the one thing, the one person that can truly make me feel that way is slipping from my grasp.

There is no trust between us. There hasn't been for a very long time now. Maybe I'm just giving myself an excuse, but I believe that lying and hiding are two separate things and I know that I've been lying to Clark, but why does he feel the need to hide from me? How is it that we have gone from what I thought to be pretty close friends to where we are now?

Clark attacked me yesterday. He walked into my office like he always does. I stood from my desk and approached him and the next thing I knew he'd hit me so hard that I'd fallen to the floor. My father hit me like that when he found me standing over Julian's crib. I would never compare Clark to my father, but those fists felt the same. I now know that both of those blows symbolized a tragic ending and a painful new beginning. A new struggle.

But after Clark hit me the first time, he didn't just leave it there. I wish he would have but at least now I know how he feels. I didn't want to fight so I stayed down. I guess this angered him more because he picked me up from my spot on the floor and basically threw me across the room. The bruises along my ribs and hip are painful but nowhere near as painful to the bruises within.

I had no idea what I'd done to deserve this.

I wanted him to just calm down and talk to me. Tell me what I'd done so that I could make it right. I put up my hand to beg him to stop, but he just punched me in the face again. I'm bleeding and hurting and all I know is that I've never seen Clark look at me this way before. Not when he found out I was still investigating him. Not when I accused him of siding with my father against me. This was a look not of disappointment or disgust, this was a look of hate and I felt a cold, hollow emptiness swirling inside of me freezing the marrow inside of my bones and making it difficult for me to even look at that beautiful face. Those beautiful lips. That soft, black hair. Those beautiful eyes lit with a passion stronger than anything I've ever seen. Beautifully dangerous.

And then he swings to hit me again. Again. But this time all I can do is try to defend myself because I have no idea how far this will go otherwise. And so, yes, I hit him. I hit my angel. And I make him bleed. Blood as red and as bright as the pain in my soul. But angels don't bleed, do they?

It wasn't until this morning that I found out what he thought I'd done. It seems that three patients escaped from Belle Reve shortly after my visit with my father. I remember bumping into some people in the hallway but it all happened so fast. This morning I learned that these were the same individuals that held Lana and the Kents captive.

Clark accused me of setting this all up as a test. A test for him. I have no idea what he's thinking or what he even means. He says that I was watching him the entire time. Yes, I was watching a tape of him and Chloe breaking into one of my labs when I got home to try to figure out why the hell they were in there, but I didn't know what they were doing at the time.

Yes, I've been involved in some research on the effects of meteor rocks on humans that may seem wrong to someone who doesn't have all of the facts, but I have never in my life done anything to intentionally hurt Lana, Clark, or the Kents. I've actually gone out of my way at one time or another to help them but I guess my help means nothing. Less than nothing. The fact that he thinks I would ever consider hurting them has forced me to see that he has no faith in me. Maybe I don't deserve his faith. Hell, maybe I don't deserve his friendship, but I at least thought that he knew I would never try to bring harm to him or his loved ones.

I feel like I'm in a daze. But this is a daze that no drug can equate to or replicate. This is a daze that has me questioning my every motive, my every action involving Clark over the last four years.

Clark says that I'm obsessed with him and that I'm living in the past. I may be living in the past, but isn't our past what determines our future? Obsessed. Maybe I am obsessed. Is it wrong to want to know how someone has been able to save you from certain death on numerous occasions? Is it wrong to want to know why my life and seemingly so many of the other lives in Smallville are so affected by this one individual? Why is it wrong for me to want to know what the writing on the cave walls represents? Why is it a secret and why don't I deserve to know? Why is it wrong for me to want to know why Clark Kent is so special, so mysterious, so otherworldly, so perfect?

I don't want to possess Clark in the way that he thinks I do; I just want to know him. I want to know him in a way that no one has ever allowed me to know them before. I don't want parts. I want the whole. Am I not deserving of the whole?

Now I'm just wondering why I can't let it all go. Why can't I be content to focus on the concrete things in my life?

Maybe I should have stopped torturing myself a long time ago. No matter how many times I mess up, I still fight to make it right again. No matter how many times the name Luthor threatens the important relationships in my life, I still try to break free from its predetermined constraints.

Clark is an enigma to me. I guess I'm just now seeing that our entire relationship has been one. We're friends one week and not speaking the next. We're working together one week and working against each other the next.

In the beginning of our friendship, he would always come to me whenever he had problems with Lana. I wonder if he went to her after his 'fight' with me. Maybe the doctors were right. Maybe I was—am crazy because never in my life would I sanely admit that I am jealous of Clark's relationship with Lana.

God, I want to hate them both but I can't. Lana has done nothing to me to deserve hate. Nothing except possess the man I crave to know and to own with every fiber of my being. Cravings I can feel in my heart, my gut, and in places I dare not mention in Smallville.

But no matter what Clark does, I know I could never hate him. He's too good, too pure, too beautiful. I don't care if he hit me because I know that it was just a misunderstanding. Clark would never attack me like that unless he thought that I'd hurt his family, but…but I never thought that he would beat me like that. But it's okay. I still lov...I think we can still savage our friendship. I don't know why but I feel like I need Clark in my life. Like he's the only force that's keeping me from fully becoming what I guess others already see in me.

I don't want to think about these things, but I just can't seem to stop. I have more important things that I should be focusing on. But right now those other things don't mean a damn thing to me.

The object of my obsession, the object of my focus, is slipping away from me and I have never in my life felt more determined to fucking fight for it.

Win or lose, I'm going to fight for it.


End file.
